I am going to Scotland once again more specifically to the Isle of Skye regionj right up north in the highlands. Staying right opposite within stone throw from this castle here

I will b going in late August and thought it would be a good place to try for the first time (given the remote location lacking light pollution) to try some star or milky way photography. I have never done this before, I suspect the ilky wayu is unlikely as geographical postion/time of year has a big factor in this is suspect?

I would really appreciate tips, gear, set up steps etc… also post processing advice!

I’ve only done it a couple times, but one thing is you’ll want to use the largest aperture possible to let in as much light as possible.

A general rule is focus to infinity, but try manual focus as well. Make good use of that EVF, and try focus peaking if your camera will pick it up.

Don’t be afraid to use high ISO’s. You will have to use high ISO to keep the exposure time down, otherwise you will get star trails due to the rotation of the earth. There’s nothing wrong with star trails if you want a lot of emphasis on them, but they will ruin anything else that’s in the sky (like the Milky Way). I was doing 30-second exposures at f2 and ISO 3200 on my X100T and got decent results with no trails. You should be able to produce cleaner results at those settings with the A7R III because it’s full frame.

I’ll post a photo of mine once I have some time.

Also don’t be afraid to tweak a lot in post. If you get the Milky Way, it won’t be anywhere near as cool straight out of camera as what you see online.

And these are my settings. I usually just hit auto to get a good starting point and then tweak from there. But keep in mind, auto will over-compensate in some situations. In this photo it tried to bring back some color in the trees, and in turn it made the sky super bright, so auto was not extremely useful in this situation.

Shutter speed should be influenced by the focal length you are using. Wider you go, longer you can keep it open as you won’t get as much trailing (if that’s the look you’re going for).

I would personally find the best focus points BEFORE going out and attempting to take photos at night. Some people will use two pieces of gaffer tape - one on the body, one on the focus ring (if its big enough) and make a mark between the two so when you’re out at night, you don’t have to fiddle and try and focus.

If you’re out there at night and having trouble focusing, chose not to mark up your lens, w/e - focus on the brightest star. lol

Because of light pollution in that country, I would be researching dark sky “parks” to check out. [1][2]

If you haven’t already, watch everything by Lonely Speck. I’m not joking. He’s a pro: